CANBERRA OBSERVED Water emergency intensifies in Murray-Darling Basin

The coming summer is looming as a major disaster period not only for farmers down much of the inland eastern seaboard of Australia, but for many towns as well that face the unprecedented prospect of running out of water completely. The severity and prolonged nature of the drought is becoming a compounding calamity for the Federal Government, with farmers and regional communities rising up in anger about the management of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, together with demands for a complete rethink on water policy. Nationals leader and Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack has pledged that he will not let any…